


No One Noticed...

by AceOfTheFandoms



Series: Em's Bad Things Happen Bingo [27]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cause We Ignore Season 8 here, Clone Lance - Freeform, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron)-centric, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance is replaced like a clone like shiro, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, cause yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTheFandoms/pseuds/AceOfTheFandoms
Summary: So much time has passed...but has anyone noticed
Series: Em's Bad Things Happen Bingo [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717099
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	No One Noticed...

**Author's Note:**

> Very important Note! I changed a lot of season 8 for plot reasons.  
> 1\. The whole ending arc, how they defeated Honerva, doesn't happen here  
> 2\. Instead there's some big final battle  
> 3\. After said battle, Honerva, losing all of her supporters, goes into hiding  
> 4\. Allura probably died in the final battle  
> 5\. The Paladins get magic rights

How long had they been trapped here? They weren’t even sure anymore? Weeks? Months? Years? They had thought their fellow paladins would have noticed, would have rescued them, and yet, there had been no sign of them anywhere. 

Sometimes they had wished they hadn’t gone on that mission. After all, that mission is where they were replaced with their clone. Apparently, the Galra already had them ready, they couldn’t help but wonder if they had one ready for each of them and they had just been the one unlucky enough to be replaced.

They had tried to get out before, with no real luck. And if their fellow paladins hadn’t found them by now...well they had to hope someone would find them. Otherwise, they might be stuck here forever.

As they started zoning back into the world around them, they thought they heard footsteps...well more like footsteps out of the normal guard schedule.

They could feel a sliver of hope start to rise but squashed it, those footsteps probably didn’t mean anything after all.   
  
~~

It was still strange looking through all these old Galra bases. Of course, most bases had peacefully turned over once the whole announcement had gone through.

This was not one of them, unfortunately. For the first time in a while, Keith had to call the other Paladins in to come help. Just like old times.

Except..for some reason, Lance didn’t want to come. No matter how much they tried, none of them could convince them to come with him. He kept stating that he’d prefer to stay at home.

That should have been Keith’s first clue.

But at the moment he was more focused on the base. They probably didn’t need all of Voltron, so Lance could stay home if he wanted.

Maybe his trouble with Red was throwing him off, even though it had happened a while ago. Maybe he should talk it over again with Lance once they got back from the mission.

It seemed like a normal mission at first, fighting Galra, keeping some of the distracted with the Lions while the others snuck in.

At least it was normal until they found that room.

Unlike the other rooms on the ship, it seemed more secluded, almost like it was barely touched. Or maybe it was like that because not everyone knew about it.

There was no way Keith could have been prepared for what he found in that room. 

Actually, it would be more accurate to say cell. As trapped in the room was Lance. Keith was confused. Hadn’t they left Lance at home? What would he be doing here?

Lance glanced up at him from where he had been positioned. “I’d rather not do this today,” he muttered, “Not in the mood to deal with you.”

Keith was still slightly in shock but brought his hand up to his communicator. “Guys I found something I think you’re all going to want to see.”

“We’re a little busy here Keith,” Pidge called, sounding slightly irritated as they worked on something, “Can’t this wait?”

“Not really,” Keith replied, “Look this is going to sound crazy but…”

“But what,” Shiro asked, noticing how Keith had started trailing off.

“I found Lance. I know he stayed home but I swear he’s in front of me right now.”

“We’ll meet you there once we have everything else wrapped up,” Shiro said.

Keith gave a quick acknowledgment before glancing over to Lance. Keith still wasn’t completely sure how they had captured Lance. He had just been fine before they left so how did they even capture him and beat them here?

Keith must have gotten caught up in his thoughts because the next thing he heard was the gasp was Hunk upon seeing Lance.

Shiro started moving to get Lance out and Keith was about to move to help when he noticed something. 

Pidge had just frozen, they were staring at Lance, seeming to realize something.

“Pidge is everything okay,” Hunk asked noticing how they had frozen. 

“You mean you haven’t realized,” Pidge asked as they turned to Hunk, the shock in their voice evident. 

“Realized what,” Keith asked.

“No matter how you look at it, ance has been here a long time. This means there’s one of two options here. Either the Galra have some sort of time manipulation technology, which we would have discovered by now, or the Lance we’ve thought was Lance wasn’t him and we didn’t even fucking notice.”

Keith froze, glancing back at Lance as Pidge’s words began circling in his head. Were they right? Did none of them notice that they were dealing with a clone rather than the real Lance?

After a long silence, Shiro walked up, Lance slung over his shoulder. “Let’s just get home, we can deal with all of this once we get back to Earth, including dealing with the other ‘Lance’ back home.”

After some discussion, they decided Lance would ride with Shiro.

The ride back to Earth was the quietest they’d ever had. Keith wasn’t sure what the others were thinking of but he kept wondering why he hadn’t noticed, hoping that for once in their life, Pidge had been wrong. 

It seemed like forever before they got back, all of them quickly rushing to the medbay.

After Lance was stabilized the rest of the Paladins went out to talk. “We need to keep the Lances separate,” Pidge said.

“But why-,” Hunk started to ask.

“Because at the moment we don’t have a way to prove which Lance is the real one. We know one of them isn’t real but until we can find a method to figure out how we can not let them meet.”

“Pidge is right,” Shiro said speaking up, “We don’t know what the clone, whichever they are, will do if they find the real Lance. Hunk, you know Lance’s family right?”

Hunk nodded. “Yeah we hang out a lot, I’ve swapped a few recipes with his mom.”

“Ask them if they noticed any changes since Lance came back, anything they’ve noticed that might help us will work.”

Hunk nodded, heading off to go ask.

Pidge was quiet, clearly thinking for a bit before speaking up. “I think I can make something to detect the level of magic someone has. It might take a bit but it could tell the difference between clone Lance and normal Lance.”

“That’s a good idea,” Hunk hummed, “I can try to help you if you need any help after I’m done talking to Lance’s family.”

Keith glanced around, not sure what he could do to help. He glanced back towards the room thinking. 

Shiro must have noticed Keith’s glance as he spoke up again. “Keith and I can keep an eye on the Lances, make sure they don’t interact or anything like that.”

Shiro glanced over to Keith. “It might be better if I keep an eye on the one who’s been here the whole time.”

Keith nodded. “You’re probably right about that.” Keith wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep his thoughts in line to watch the one that wasn’t currently in a cryopod. 

Shiro nodded a bit. “So we’ll meet back here later today?”

They all agreed before going their separate ways. Keith watched the others go before walking back in the medbay and sitting in front of the pod.

With no one to talk to besides those on duty, Keith’s thoughts were allowed to drift as he kept an eye on Lance.

What if Pidge was right and this was the real Lance? How long had he been captured? Had the same trick really worked all of them twice? Once with Shiro and now with Lance? Were they really….that bad friends?

The next few days seemed to pass in a bit of a blur for Keith. Hunk met up with everyone after talking to Lance’s family.

Apparently while the adults hadn’t noticed anything at first, the kids had noticed differences. While before everything, Lance played with the kids a lot, whether it was joining in on their games or helping them get what they needed for the games...within reason of course, after he got back he just...stopped. 

The adults had just brushed it off as he was still adjusting back from being in space, he also spent a lot of time alone whenever he had so free time so they thought that it was a part of that.

The second Hunk said that everyone grew concerned. Lance had always talked about how close he was to his family. He wouldn’t just distance himself for no reason.

But first….they had to wait for Pidge to finish their device. 

They worked a little faster with Hunk’s help, but that didn’t make the wait any less stressful, especially considering Lance still hadn’t woken up. 

Fortunately, both Pidge and Hunk were fast workers, especially once they worked together. They called Keith down to their lab on the third day to test it out.

Being half-Galra had some advantages, one of those being he had a higher magic level then most humans. 

Then again, all of the paladins had higher magic levels from actually being in pure quintessence. Keith remembered the magic everyone used in that final battle, though it didn’t seem anyone had been able to use it since.

The second he stepped into the lab, Pidge pulled him into a seat. “Good, you’re here,” they said, “Hunk and I have already tested it on ourselves, but we needed a test with a different level of magic before calling itcomplete. And Shiro’s keeping an eye on ‘Lance’ so you’re the best option.”

“What do you need me to do,” Keith asked, knowing Pidge probably wouldn’t calm until they were sure that this worked.

“Just sit there and let us test the device out,” they said, waiting until Keith sat down before rushing to grab the device. 

It only took a few seconds for them to rush back over to the device. “Here this end is a bit like a thermometer, don’t worry we’ve already cleaned it.”

Keith nodded and put in his mouth, the second he did that, both Pidge and Hunk rushed to the other half of the device to see what it said.

After about a minute there was a beep and he could see Pidge grinning.

“So it worked?”

“Yep! I probably need to do some last minute adjustments before we use it on the clone, I’ll probably send a message for everyone to come down so he doesn’t get too suspicious,” Pidge answered.

Keith nodded. “I guess I’ll see you then?”

Pidge barely nodded, already deep into their work. Keith left them to it, knowing he’d probably get shooed out soon if they didn’t anyways.

It was only a few more hours before Pidge sent a message to all of them in the group chat, the one that included the possible clone, telling the rest of the paladins (and the potential clone) to meet them in their lab.

Keith took one last glance at Lance before heading there. He couldn’t help but hold onto that last shred of hope that they were wrong as he headed to Pidge’s lab. 

Keith was a bit surprised to notice he was the last one there. He glanced over at ‘Lance’. Shiro had probably brought him here.

Keith turned towards the front when Pidge cleared their throat. “So I've been working on a device to test magic recently. Mainly to see how it affected different species and all that, and I figured we’d be a good test run, most of us quite literally being in pure magic.”

Most everyone nodded, but Keith thought that he noticed a second of panic on ‘Lance’s’ face. When he looked again though, it was gone.

Pidge had him and Shiro go first. Two different levels to make sure the device couldn’t be overloaded, or at least that was their explanation. After Shiro went, Pidge turned to ‘Lance’.

“Do you think you can go next Lance? It would probably be good to get an example with the least amount out of the group and Hunk and i already tested earlier.”

“Well you shouldn’t need a test if you already have a few examples,” ‘Lance’ said, trying to backpedal.

“More data is better in situations like this,” Pidge shot back.

Seeing no other way out, ‘Lance’ stepped up to be tested, everyone’s eyes shooting to the screen.

Their worst fears were realized as the saw ‘Lance’ light up as made of magic.

‘Lance’ chuckled a bit. “You know, I didn’t think it would take you this long to figure it out. It didn’t take nearly this long for you to figure Kuron out. I thought I was screwed once you figured him out I would have been discovered any day,” the clone smirked a bit here, “And yet no one noticed. Makes you wonder how much you really cared about him.”

You’d think after spending time with the paladins, the clone would have known better not to taunt them when the whole team was against them, as it only took another second before 4 paladins had their weapons at their neck.

As they took care of the clone, Keith came to a conclusion. They were going to have tell Lance what happened when he woke up.

And none of them were looking forward to that.


End file.
